Centre to parties: Work together to deal with the ongoing drought situation

New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday did not heed to the Opposition’s demand for debt waiver to farmers and instead urged all parties to work together to deal with the ongoing drought situation which has affected several states.

Replying to a short duration discussion in the Lok Sabha on drought, drinking water crisis and inter-linking of rivers, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said that the Centre has done a lot for the farmers in two years and this work cannot be compared with the previous governments.

On the Opposition's demand of debt waiver to farmers, he said one of the members from Maharashtra had stated that such a scheme launched earlier had many faults, referring indirectly to the UPA regime's ambitious farm loan waiver scheme.

Read: Supreme Court pulls up Centre for no drought relief

To buttress his point, he cited a CAG report to say that Rs 271.49 crore were recovered from people who were not eligible for a debt-waiver scheme, which was to the tune of about Rs 72,000 crore. In about 5,000 cases, action was taken against bank staff and there were also instances of tampering.